You are here

Speaker: Adam Zucker "The Return"

Primary tabs

The Return

Tuesday, October 17 at 7:30pm

Film and Q&A with producer Adam Zucker

How do you build your identity when your past has been stripped away? How do you feel when you find out you are a member of an extreme minority in a homogenous society? You realize you are a part of a rich but virtually erased history – what do you do? In Poland today, many young Poles are discovering Jewish roots they didn’t know about and are grappling with how to make meaning of it all.

The Return brings this new world to light, seen from different perspectives of four young women, as they struggle with difficult choices. They are the third generation of Holocaust survivors. But many of them had been raised as Catholics and only found out they were Jewish in their teens. This film follows them as they carve out a unique trajectory to their Jewish roots.

Poland is the place where more Jews have roots then anywhere, and from which the most significant Jewish culture stems; and where the highest concentration of Jews perished in the Holocaust. Today a nascent Jewish community is growing and these young women represent what is currently happening there. The question remains: Is Judaism in Poland truly viable?

Adam Zucker is a documentary filmmaker and editor. In 2009 he read an article about the revival of interest in Polish Jewish culture. Traveling to Warsaw and Krakow in search of a possible subject, he discovered a generation of Poles in their 20s who were raised Catholic only to find out they were actually Jewish. He spent four years interviewing four young Polish women and tracking their lives as they discovered their newfound Jewish roots.